March 20th, we depart from Florence, Kentucky at 11:30am with a 9 hour drive ahead of us. After about 30 miles on the road, Deville spotted Shelton Fireworks! They claim to be one of the largest fireworks warehouses in the entire world and after walking around the warehouse, we believe that claim. That place is HUUUGE! See the picture of Charlie below. That's only a quarter of the warehouse...

After what felt like forever we made it to Chicago. As we were entering the city, Terry and Charlie had a nice conversation about the giant silver bean or maybe a beam? Check out the video below and decide for yourself. We found a nice little Thai restaurant in Chicago's Little Italy. The guys filled up on mouth watering Chicken Satay and Thai Ice Tea. We were there for no more then an hour. Once we finished eating we got back to the van and piled in. Deville made an executive decision of stopping at a laundromat in the Medical Village where we spent a solid hour and a half. I'm gonna say it was a fun experience. Half of us had never been to a laundromat so everything seemed pretty foreign to us. It was like cheating on a test at school. Each of us were looking over the shoulder of the person next to them to see how to properly set up the washer. While we were waiting for the clothes to be washed, we killed time by watching "My Good Neighbor" YouTube videos, watching Spanish soap opera on the TV, and watching Charlie and Roman mess around in the dryers. The lady working there wasn't very happy with us playing with the dryers and told us not to do that anymore. Time went by and everyone's laundry was finally done. We left a tip for the lady and jumped in the van. Next stop, West Allis, 95 miles to go!

We made it to our hotel in West Allis late at night. We put our bags in our hotel room then set out to the nearest diner for some dinner. Plenty of the guys said that it was the worst food/service they've ever had at a restaurant. From burnt grilled cheese to inedible cheeseburgers, it wasn't best idea to eat there. And that wasn't even the worst part of the night! There are two parts of this story. Here's the first part. We made it back to our hotel around midnight and started getting ready for bed. Terry realized that he had forgot something in the van so he set out to get it. He came back into the room a few minutes later completely wide eyes and freaked out. According to Terry, he was walking down the stairs of the hotel to go outside when a giant motorcyclist/skin head came walking up the stairs straight for Terry. He grabbed Terry by the family jewels which were only protected by basketball shorts, glared into his eyes, and repeated to ask Terry if he was a white boy. Terry, in full WTF mode say yes then the guy said alright you're coming with me, we're gonna get those guys. Terry rushed the opposite way to the van, grabbed what he needed to get and came quickly back to the room and explained the whole story to us.
Here is the second part of the story. So as I mentioned in the previous paragraph, some of the guys were catching some fresh air. Apparently that same motorcyclist approached the guys and began to harass them. Charlie began to stand up to the huge guy and the guy noticed this. He put his hand behind his back and threatened that he would shoot all of the guys. Some words were exchanged and the guy walked away into the hotel which is where he saw Terry. Luckily, that was the last we saw of him. Time for bed!

March 21st. First things first, we cleaned out the entire van. Hot cheetos, chips, cookies, any kind of crumb you can think of was cleaned out of the van. We assorted the decks, bags, and everything else to make the van more comfortable. Charlie voluntarily skated around the hotel to find a trash container to throw everything away. With plenty of time to spare, we made the decision to visit Phase ll skate shop in Brookfield. The guys switched their boards out, we talked with Reese(the guy who was working there), and Corey bought some wax. After spending some time there, we filed out of the shop, jumped in the van and headed towards the other Phase ll in Wauwatosa. We were greeted by Mark, who I'm pretty sure runs that store. He is a nice guy and I suggest visiting his shop if you're ever in the area. There's a vending machine inside the shop with some tasty Purple Fanta. Brendon grabbed one of the Thrasher Magazines and began to look through it. Surprise surprise Brendon!... Our Powell-Peralta ad in that magazine was of Brendon doing a gap to lipslide down a kinked handrail. Brendon was hyped! We talked a little more with Mark, took a group photo, then set out for Cream City Skatepark.

We arrived at Cream City Skatepark around 4pm and the kids were hyped!!

There was almost everything that you could think of to skate. Lance started getting down on the set and the handrail, Corey was doing any trick that he wanted to do on the bump to rail and down another handrail, and Brendon was flying around hitting all the ramps and rails. Jarren and Charlie were hitting one of the vert walls then they would cruise through the whole park doing wall rides, ollies, slob plants, and much more. Roman decided to get street techy and threw a 360 Flip down the set along with a good amount of other street tricks. Nolan went straight to the bowl, where he figured out all the lines. He was wooing every one that was by the bowl with lip tricks, airs, Jim Jams, Chicken Legs, and all kinds of other fun tricks. Mighty joined in on the bowl session and skated it as if he has skated it every day of his life. The session was starting out good and it was only going to get better!

Time for pizza! 20 Large pizzas and soda for everyone. Kids crowded around the guys for autographs and pictures. Once we all had our share of pizza, we grabbed the box of product and began throwing things out. We ran out of goodies to hand out then jumped back on our boards. Most of the guys began to attack the vert wall in the corner of the park. Mighty got a sad plant and numerous other tricks, Roman got a bs boneless and a frontside ollie, and Jarren back crailed it along with a few other styley tricks. Charlie threw down a blunt to fakie and then some how managed to bean plant off the wall and back into the ramp! Near the vert wall action, Brendon was flying off a quarter into a frontside wallride then battled for a 360 shove fast plant off the wall(Brendon called it a Beer Plant).

It was an epic session and we can't wait to come back and have another one. Thanks Cream City!